The Final Tape
by attackonhans
Summary: (Will be updated with the transcript ASAP.) Something happened down at the old community radio station, and as usual, your friends dared you to go and get the final tape, so you could find out what happened to the once bustling town of Night Vale, and the mysterious presenter who died, clutching his microphone tightly.


**This is just something I wanted to attempt, I don't even know where this is gonna go but probably somewhere kinda dark. It's not exactly canon, as I haven't actually completely caught up, but my entire knowledge of canon is involved, I haven't gone against anything I know, I just don't know it all!**

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Night Vale Community Radio Station. It's less daunting up close, but the stories tied to this building are enough to send a shiver up your spine as you gaze up at the crumbling brick and the ivy and moss that's been growing there for decades.

It doesn't broadcast anymore, obviously. The signal's been dead for years, the frequency now filled with the usual static and a strange hissing, similar to the sound of a bus door opening, only lower, and more drawn out. If you listen carefully enough, so people say, you can hear screaming. A frantic, panicked screaming of a single man, but you've never listened to the ghost stories. If you paid attention to every conspiracy or old wives' tale about what Night Vale used to be, you'd drive yourself as insane as your grandparents are.

Still, a dare is a dare, and you've never been one to disappoint your friends. You stumble up the cracked steps and place your hand on the rusted bar on the door. The glass of the door is cracked and one move away from shattering and showering you in glass. It's probably not a good idea to go in this way. Besides, it looks like it's been barricaded from the other side. Obviously somebody had tried to keep something out...or something in.

You drop your hand and amble around to the side of the building, searching for an alternate entrance of some sort. You're in luck, there's a window that's cracked open a little. It's a little high up, but you figure that you can jump, you're somewhat athletic. Glancing over your shoulder, making sure you were still alone. The radio station is private property. Nobody knows who owns it, but it's been bought.

People tried to break into the grounds a few years ago. They were friends of yours too, there's a small group of you who heard all of the tapes of the old Night Vale show, they fascinated you. But rumors were that there was a final tape, in the radio station. A few of your friends set out to find it, so you could complete the story and find out what happened to Night Vale. They've been gone since then, the Sheriff's Secret Police never searched for them. When you had begged them to find your friends they just stared through you, as if you weren't even there!

You shake your head, trying not to imagine what had happened to them and what could possibly happen to you if you were caught, and work on prising the window open, expanding the small gap to reveal a hole just big enough for you to climb through. You do just that, jumping up and tumbling head first into the bathroom, cursing under your breath as you hit the floor. Quickly, you scramble to your feet and brush yourself down, the ceiling is almost falling apart and there's plaster and dry wall on your jumper, you brush it off and then turn your head to examine the bathroom.

You almost have to do a double take because _is that a cat?_ You shuffle over to the sink to get a closer look, maybe you hit your head harder on the purple and cream tiled floor than you initially thought. It turns out that you are most definitely not hallucinating after a severe concussion, hallucinations don't meow and brush up against your hand, do they? The cat is soft, like a cat should be, and...old. It's definitely been here a while.

The cat however, is far from ordinary, the main factor of that is the fact that it's...suspended...in the middle of the air, just to the side of the sink. It's just about four feet from the ground, with a purple collar, sporting a golden name tag. You carefully take the name tag in your fingers and tilt it to the flickering strip light above you, the engraved letters spelling out 'Khoshekh'. You had heard about Khoshekh in the tapes, he had been the station pet. Why hadn't he starved? You decide it's best to just take the old presenter's advice when talking about Khoshekh..."Some things are not meant to be questioned."

You tug the bathroom door open and step inside the abandoned lobby, you begin to wonder why you thought this was a good idea in the first place. The dark purple paint on the walls is dry and cracking, and caked in blood and human and...non-human body parts. There's one thing that stands out in your mind though, you can't take your eyes off of it.

Behind the reception desk, the Night Vale Community radio symbol is covered in blood. There's handprints, as if it was grasped at as somebody fell. There's also words, scrawled messily in what you can only assume is blood. Either that or...chunky red paint. You grimace and step closer, trying to ignore the awful smell that can only be described as rotting meat.

"We were lied to. Trust nobody. Not even yourself."

Your eyes scan over the messy words, a shockwave of shivers coursing down your spine and the hairs on the back of your neck standing up. You have to get out of here as soon as possible. _Just get the tape and get out._ You repeat to yourself, to the point where you're actually whispering it to yourself, trying to provide some sort of noise, other than the faint hum of machinery that you only notice when you focus on it. You push your increasing fears to the back of your head and press on through the derelict building, heading to the recording booth.

* * *

It had taken you a few minutes of exploring to find the recording booth. You glance up just above the heavy wooden door, you assume it was so heavy for soundproofing reasons. The recording light was still on.

Swallowing hard, you push open the door and brace yourself for the scene that unfolds before you. You look first at the chair, where _he_ used to sit. As a matter of fact, _he_ is still there. His body slumped over the front of his desk, his fingers tightly curled around the microphone, the flesh beginning to rot away, exposing the bone. His arms are tattooed, a tribal tattoo that swirls in directions that you never deemed physically possible before now. His skin is pale, his build strong yet still decidedly meek compared to other men. His hair is matted with blood, but it looks like it would have been a dirty blonde before now, impeccably coiffed.

He is wearing a baggy white button-up shirt, with a dark purple waistcoat and matching tie, which you notice upon closer inspection. You reach forward and tug at his corpse, trying to pull him back to get a better look at his face. His body keens and falls backwards onto the chair. His body is rotting, everything is falling apart from his face, which looks as perfect as it did while he was alive, as if he could open his eyes any second.

He's wearing glasses, over two of his eyes, a third is just above and between the other two, closed as the others are. His jawline is defined, with a faint stubble that could only be noticed if you looked hard enough. He looks pained, though not physically, as though something was eating him from the inside out, as though terrified.

You can't look at him anymore, that and the smell is starting to stir the pit of your stomach. You look back up and spot the hefty machine used for recording, the last tape is still slotted inside of it, just in your view. You step forward and grab it, pulling it sharply and breaking it free of the derelict machine. It's labelled...hastily, you assume the man did this. The letters "SOS" are written on the tape.

Shaking your head, you clutch the tape tightly and leave the room, needing to get out of this building as soon as possible.

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**The tape recording is in the next chapter woo! **


End file.
